Sportscar/GT (and Le Mans) Rumours and Repetition

[Deleted]

The original idea was to do single one hour ish 6 lap race, like most N24 supports tend to do usually, but then Yvan Muller argued "euh ze circueet iz fun but dat long rece would not bee dat ezxceiting, no?" to Lotti and he stupidly agreed.

Anyway bringing the series (no matter how low the quality of it might be now) there in the first place was one of the most awesome decisions of the decade.

[TF110]

6hrs, 1000km, to me its a matter of naming and trying to recapture some type of past glory. Variety is nice but I dont see it as a big deal in the name. They should have a longer than 6hr race aside from LM though.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Chiana

TV is and has always been an excuse. It could still just be 1000KM (back to strategy!!) and ACO could order full 6 hour TV window for it regardless. Even if the actual race ends up after 5 hours 10 minutes once the 1000KM is reached, you can easily fill out 20-30 minutes of post-race with the endless sub class trophy giving podium ceremonies, and if there's leftover time that can be left for interviews and some random analyzing, or race highlights replay in compact form. If you actually look at one hour WTCC broadcasts on Eurosport, maybe 20 minutes of it is actual racing, rest is just filler.

Riiiight. Reality: channel starts to show something else as soon as the race is over and overall podium has been shown (heck, the non-LMP1H podiums aren't even always shown in the official stream and even after 24LM there is barely any post-race coverage).

Also, it is probably more common to show e.g. first hour and then last hour instead of full race. Kind of hard to schedule the last hour and finish, if you don't know which hour it is going to be and then you end up wasting tv slot time.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by TF110

6hrs, 1000km, to me its a matter of naming and trying to recapture some type of past glory. Variety is nice but I dont see it as a big deal in the name. They should have a longer than 6hr race aside from LM though.

I don't care what it is called, 1000KM or 6 Hours (although, "6 Hours of X" is a lazy translation from french and would work much better as "X 6 Hours"). So the title is just an afterthought, as is even the historic connection. It's the strategy that I miss. From lower classes having to calculate what the headline class is doing and adjusting their strategy accordingly with fuel and tires. Also as a side product slightly shorter races which IMO would be good since it can get exhausting with these standard events.

Anyway, of course if I had to choose between distance based races or getting a proper 10/12 hour event up there as companion piece, I'd have the long event too. So I agree there

Originally Posted by deggis

Riiiight. Reality: channel starts to show something else as soon as the race is over and overall podium has been shown (heck, the non-LMP1H podiums aren't even always shown in the official stream and even after 24LM there is barely any post-race coverage).

Also, it is probably more common to show e.g. first hour and then last hour instead of full race. Kind of hard to schedule the last hour and finish, if you don't know which hour it is going to be and then you end up wasting tv slot time.

The first paragraph changes nothing I have said. Yes that is what happens when the allocated TV slot has gone through it course, as in currently is happening, but if the said broadcast slot is scheduled to go all the way through to the 6 hour mark regardless at what point the 1000KM is actually finished, they will keep the broadcast there and not break contracts. Well alright I could see say Fox Sports cutting off to endless commercials or reruns of some reality crap, but particularly the European sports channels have done "filling time" before. I think along the years I've watched some Porsche Supercup broadcasts on Eurosport with 30 minutes of filler in there. Porsche freaking Supercup.

It would be naive to expect full races from Eurosport (even if they have two channels in their disposal) but right now it's pretty much the same amount of stuff they had in the 1000KM days. I doubt it really affects whether or not they want the broadcast the races or not. ACO probably has said that if ES wants exclusive rights for Le Mans they need to do the other 6 hourers as well in whatever capacity that they seem appropriate. And ES does the same as before, some from here and some from there.

[Victor_RO]

2016 WEC calendar to be announced at the CoTA round.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Chiana

but if the said broadcast slot is scheduled to go all the way through to the 6 hour mark regardless at what point the 1000KM is actually finished, they will keep the broadcast there and not break contracts.

Assuming a channel agrees to such contract. I don't think WEC is in a state where it is the side making demands about non-LM rounds.

[Samoan Attorney]

Originally Posted by Chiana

The original idea was to do single one hour ish 6 lap race, like most N24 supports tend to do usually, but then Yvan Muller argued "euh ze circueet iz fun but dat long rece would not bee dat ezxceiting, no?" to Lotti and he stupidly agreed.

Anyway bringing the series (no matter how low the quality of it might be now) there in the first place was one of the most awesome decisions of the decade.

Marcello Lotti has had no involvement with the FIA WTCC since 2013, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Samoan Attorney

Marcello Lotti has had no involvement with the FIA WTCC since 2013, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

The only bit I was wrong was about it being Lotti, and that's because I haven't actually followed the series in like 4 years or something and just didn't know/remember that he had been replaced. Everything else I said is true.

June 2014 on Autosport
"The idea is to hold one single 120km race, with one pitstop. The details of this particular format will be worked out between FIA, Eurosport Events and teams before the next FIA Touring Car Commission."

October 2014 on Autosport
" When we talked about the one-hour race, we knew it would be a risk with 25 cars, say, that the field could become very spread out. It would therefore be hard to produce something exciting. The first person who said this to me was Yvan Muller, bizarrely, as he has never raced there. He said, 'Are you sure that the grid will stay compact if we race there for one hour?' I thought maybe he was right."

[bckf]

The two races format worked well anyway.
I think the one hour race was the best idea only on paper, the gaps between the cars and the drivers are now too large to produce close racing. And if you can't have that, there's no much point in having a touring car race. Two races instead meant we could at least take advantage of the reverse grid.
Anyway, it was good to watch touring cars on the Nordschleife. The TC1 cars were surprisingly fast, too: just enough to make it into the top 30 qualifying of the N24.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by bckf

The two races format worked well anyway.
I think the one hour race was the best idea only on paper, the gaps between the cars and the drivers are now too large to produce close racing. And if you can't have that, there's no much point in having a touring car race. Two races instead meant we could at least take advantage of the reverse grid.

Yeah it was good, very well worth watching - the first WTCC race in years! - but I would have still preferred single 120km. It might've got more 'boring' (unless wet) yeah but this is about the only place in the world where that doesn't matter, because of the awesomeness of the track. And even with the split races, the only reason the second race usually gets exciting is because of the reverse grid and Citroens artificially having to start from midway.

It's great that world championship can work together with bigger premier events, wish more series particularly in sportscars would joint forces and not always just want to be the headliners everywhere. Generally speaking American series are much better at this than European and worldwide ones.

Anyway, it was good to watch touring cars on the Nordschleife. The TC1 cars were surprisingly fast, too: just enough to make it into the top 30 qualifying of the N24.

But the WTCC wasn't subjected to the speed limits as the top N24 classes were, so the comparison is pointless.

[TF110]

They didnt go that much or at all faster than the speed limits anyway. The limits are going away soon anyway.

[bckf]

Originally Posted by Chiana

But the WTCC wasn't subjected to the speed limits as the top N24 classes were, so the comparison is pointless.

Well, TC1 lap times remain impressive even when compared to previous years N24 qualifying results, if you consider they still are 1.6 turbo FWD. Even more if you ignore they're considerably more expensive than GT3. :P

Anyway, I agree on the silly lack of joint events. It's not smart in any way, as very few series are enough popular to actually have anything to lose by being a support series to something else.
It would be awesome if ELMS was joined by WEC at Imola and Estoril.

[Deleted]

Now. The economy seems to be going down the drain in many European markets and stock exchanges, with Euro shaking. And on the other side of the pond it's not that great either. In addition lately China has started to crumble with devaluation of yuan and reallocations of budget, and now you have deep falls in stocks - yesterday has been referred to as Black Monday - and global sales with it.



Are we looking at another 2008 to 2009/10 esq falldown in sportscar racing in the near future? The last time out we effectively lost the ALMS as beibg the king of the food chain with Audi and Penske moving away, along with other teams and big money sources, and LMS dried up too in Europe. But now we have expensive world championship that could potentially take blow if things go awry.

And even if we just isolate the Asian market, how does that effect things. I'm sure Audi is quite concerned about China sales, what about the other three?

[J Jay]

Ford in LMP1 from 2018. Apparently a prospect according to Hindy & GG who say that there is already some off-table work on a potential car.

Not sure myself, for one I cannot imagine Ganassi dumping the Chevrolet Indy engine (and therefore switching to Honda). Thoughts anyone?

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Ford in LMP1 from 2018. Apparently a prospect according to Hindy & GG who say that there is already some off-table work on a potential car.

Not sure myself, for one I cannot imagine Ganassi dumping the Chevrolet Indy engine (and therefore switching to Honda). Thoughts anyone?

Take the GTE Ford GT engine and dump it into an IndyCar.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Ford in LMP1 from 2018. Apparently a prospect according to Hindy & GG who say that there is already some off-table work on a potential car.

Not sure myself, for one I cannot imagine Ganassi dumping the Chevrolet Indy engine (and therefore switching to Honda). Thoughts anyone?

Wouldn't it be fun to have Ford racing in LMP1 globally, while in US some Corvette bodied Dallaras fight against Corvette bodied Orecas and Multimatic-Riley-whatevers.

It's prob hoax anyway, but actual American OEM manufacturer in P1 could potentially manage to lobby P1 finally back to NA at least in some form, ie the big races.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by BullMan

Take the GTE Ford GT engine and dump it into an IndyCar.

There's no guarantee that it will do the business, and I'm not sure how much work will need to be done (do we have any information about what's going in the GTE GT?) but yeah, that will keep Ganassi in Indycar if this rumour is true.

Originally Posted by Chiana

Wouldn't it be fun to have Ford racing in LMP1 globally, while in US some Corvette bodied Dallaras fight against Corvette bodied Orecas.

It's prob hoax anyway, but actual American OEM manufacturer in P1 could potentially manage to lobby P1 finally back to NA at least in some form, ie the big races.

The "skunk works" part of the comment from Hindhaugh made it sound more like a feasibility study than anything that has been greenlighted, but he was quite open about it (Goodwin, understandably less so). Either way it's not going to happen in this rules cycle so anyone who runs with this can suitably distance themselves should it not pan out.

It was interesting to hear when you pair it up with Sam Collins (this morning) talking about how JAF would like to go to the USA but won't unless an NA manufacturer commits to Class 1.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Ford in LMP1 from 2018. Apparently a prospect according to Hindy & GG who say that there is already some off-table work on a potential car.

I missed this, but was this an actual rumor of one of these "I think... might..." speculations of Graham/John conveniently made to sound like rumors?

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by J Jay

There's no guarantee that it will do the business, and I'm not sure how much work will need to be done (do we have any information about what's going in the GTE GT?) but yeah, that will keep Ganassi in Indycar if this rumour is true.



The "skunk works" part of the comment from Hindhaugh made it sound more like a feasibility study than anything that has been greenlighted, but he was quite open about it (Goodwin, understandably less so). Either way it's not going to happen in this rules cycle so anyone who runs with this can suitably distance themselves should it not pan out.

It was interesting to hear when you pair it up with Sam Collins (this morning) talking about how JAF would like to go to the USA but won't unless an NA manufacturer commits to Class 1.

It's the 3.5L TT V6 from the DP.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by deggis

I missed this, but was this an actual rumor of one of these "I think... might..." speculations of Graham/John conveniently made to sound like rumors?

Both of them were pretty confident about this from what I recall, although I'd have to listen again to remember their exact words.* Goodwin sounded like he was going to play it as a "some say..." but Hindhaugh went straight in and named Ford as the manufacturer going for LMP1 (they were talking about 2018+, the rules, Reinke's comments about stability, Porsche committing, etc.)

*Which I can't do legally because reasons. When the race is uploaded somewhere I'll try and find the timestamp for you.

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by J Jay

It was interesting to hear when you pair it up with Sam Collins (this morning) talking about how JAF would like to go to the USA but won't unless an NA manufacturer commits to Class 1.

JAF?

[J Jay]

Japanese Auto Federation, the entity that runs Super GT. From what Sam said they are open to racing in America (as they plan to do in Germany in 17/18), but they wouldn't do anything like the exhibition race they had at Fontana in 2004. They would want American factories to build Class 1 (GT500 compatible) cars with them.

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Japanese Auto Federation, the entity that runs Super GT. From what Sam said they are open to racing in America (as they plan to do in Germany in 17/18), but they wouldn't do anything like the exhibition race they had at Fontana in 2004. They would want American factories to build Class 1 (GT500 compatible) cars with them.

US DTM is not going to get off the ground. NASCAR is stupid(er) for having entertained the idea. All it would ever do is take teams away from TUSC.

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Ford in LMP1 from 2018. Apparently a prospect according to Hindy & GG who say that there is already some off-table work on a potential car.

Not sure myself, for one I cannot imagine Ganassi dumping the Chevrolet Indy engine (and therefore switching to Honda). Thoughts anyone?

That one has been a rumour for a little while. HPD is probably not terribly happy with Andretti again and would like a more reliable and less bankrupt team.

Switching away from Chevrolet in NASCAR is harder to buy considering how awful Ford is besides Penske, and Penske could win running the entire Dodge program themselves.

[FormulaFox]

Originally Posted by BullMan

US DTM is not going to get off the ground. NASCAR is stupid(er) for having entertained the idea. All it would ever do is take teams away from TUSC.

US DTM could work as an option for the Prototype class. But that's about it.

The only way I see any JAF-style vehicles in the US is if IMSA specced GTD into a copy of GT300. (it's doable, and I'd love to see it, but don't hold your breath)